I’ve covered SXSW a handful of times, but I usually only end up here for the music portion – the last four days of the nine-day event, which you’d expect to be pretty rowdy (c’mon, it’s hundreds of musicians and party-lovin’ fans). I wasn’t prepared to see that same enthusiasm for public intoxication during the first weekend of the event, when the tech nerds and film geeks have downtown to themselves.

But as the weekend regulars head into town, they intermingle with the geek conference crowd, who are ready to wash away the day’s panels in a seemingly endless stream of liquor and cheap beer.

And by the end of the night, it becomes hard to tell who are the tourists and who are the townies.

Given the intricate, intelligent, warm and overall quirky nature of a lot of director Joss Whedon’s work, it seems only natural that one day he would tackle the work of William Shakespeare. (Yes, really.) That he would do it with a rag-tag group of actor friends, shoot it in black and white, use his own house as a set and film it in less than two weeks – that was a little more surprising.

When he introduced his Much Ado About Nothing on Saturday at South By Southwest Whedon, in thanking the festival organizers, said it was a special honor because he was allowed in with a film that was “possibly even a stranger movie than the one I had last year,” referencing 2012’s premiere of Cabin in the Woods. And it is odd, but not in an off-putting way. It’s strange because it’s perplexing that anyone could pull off what Whedon did and not have it be a complete mess. And even more impressive because of how effortless and breezy it looks. With a vibe that is a delicate mix of senior thesis film and the best kind of WB show (obviously), Whedon’s attempt to update the Bard has a warmth that makes watching it feel like less of a movie-going experience and more of weekend spent hanging out with a bunch of theater nerds who just wanted to make a film to see if they could do it. (Spoiler alert: They do.)

It’s practically legend now that Whedon and his cast, which includes his old hands like Nathan Fillion and Clark Gregg, made the film in just 12 days, and how any group of filmmakers – no matter how talented – could’ve made a such a smartly-crafted Shakespeare adaptation in such a short window of time is simply mind-boggling. (The complex language! The references to things that don’t really get used anymore, like letters!)

Whedon’s Much Ado takes place in the present day, and seems unconcerned with the multiple mentions of places in Italy despite the fact that clearly looks like it was filmed in Southern California. The words are the Bard’s but the inflection and direction has just a bit of Whedon sauce, drawing humor out of the prose with well-timed sight gags and gestures. In all, it’s how a Shakespeare update should be done.

That’s not to say Much Ado is perfect – a few moments feel like they maybe could’ve gotten an extra take or two – but those imperfections just serve to make it more endearing. And Whedon’s film isn’t supposed to feel like a massive blockbuster – he saves that mojo for The Avengers. It’s not an ambitious Shakespeare epic like those made by Baz Luhrmann and Kenneth Branagh, either, even though it has small flavors of both. Instead watching Much Ado feels like reading Whedon’s personal sonnet – to drama, to filmmaking, to the art of doing wonderful things just because you can.

Al Gore: Our Democracy Has Been Hacked and the Atmosphere is an Open Sewer, “But That Doesn’t Mean I’m Not Optimistic.”

Former Vice President Al Gore played to an overflow crowd at SXSW Saturday afternoon, describing a future that frankly, sounds truly horrific. But it’s a future, Gore says, that we can manage — even benefit from — if we tackle head-on what he described in his latest book (and at SXSW) as the “six drivers of global change”:

1. Earth Inc. What Gore describes as Earth Inc. represents a new stage of economic globalization. It has a new relationship to capital, labor, consumer markets, and national governments than in the past. Gore points to what he calls “robotsourcing,” a new level of automaton that expands not only our physical capabilities but cognitive functions as well. The so-called Luddite fallacy that technological change leads to structural unemployment has been proven wrong over centuries of technological progress. “But an increasing number of economists are wondering whether that Luddite fallacy is still true.”

2. Global Mind. The emergence of the “global mind” where the thoughts and feelings of billions of people are connected to each other through increasingly intelligent devices and things bristling with sensors. That connection has given rise to a “stalker economy” where you get tracked everywhere you go, and even changed the relationship between dairy farmers and some cows who have sensors embedded to alert the farmer when they can get pregnant. “When the cow comes into heat, she texts the farmer,” Gore says. “It’s the first known example of interspecies sexting.”

3.The Balance of Power Is Shifting From West to East. It’s a change more significant than anything that has happened in 500 years, and the power relationships between China, Indonesia and other growing countries need to be re-sorted. “The U.S. remains the only nation that can provide the kind of leadership that more than ever is required,” Gore says. But U.S. democracy has been taken over by special interest, making meaningful reform and bold leadership almost impossible. “Our democracy has been hacked; the people are no longer in charge.”

“The Congress today is utterly and completely incapable of passing legislation that offers real reform unless they first get the permission they need from special interest.”

4. Growth at All Costs. “Growth has become a holy grail for Earth Inc. and our whole society,” Gore says. “We have the feeling that progress and growth are the same thing.” Clearly they aren’t, Gore says, as they lead to continued environmental degradation among other massive problems. “We are using a compass that points straight of f the end of a cliff.”

5. The Reinvention of Life and Death. Gore points to the continued revolution in genetics and biotech. From human evolution to agriculture, we have more power than ever before to use for good and ill. “”We are now acquiring the ability to change the fabric of nature,” Gore says.

6. The Climate (Of Course). It wouldn’t be Al Gore without a look at climate crisis. More and more scientists have joined Gore since An Inconvenient Truth ran through the global psyche. “You can find some people who will still take a contrarian view, but more and more people are changing their minds,” Gore says. And it’s still a massive problem as persistent drought and storms like Sandy have shown. “Here’s the hopeful news about this,” Gore says. “The beginnings of a decarbonization movement are now manifest around the world and it is picking up speed.”

Finally some good news, which brings us to Gore’s overall perspective on how he personally approaches the future, grim though it may seem. Each of the six change-agents Gore describes is “pregnant with the fraternal twins of peril and opportunity.”

“I think that the basis for realistic optimism begins with a clear-eyed view of exactly what the problem is,” Gore says. “Our country is in very serious trouble. When I say that I mean it with all my heart, but that doesn’t mean I am not optimistic.

More and more people are using social media to augment their television viewing experience. They no longer want to be passive when watching the tube; they want a say among their peers about which shows and characters rule.

Unionmetrics is a San Francisco-based company measuring trends like this. During an interview with Wired at SXSW, they described how they have noticed three distinct phases of social engagement around TV, depending on whether a show a started or not. Before and during a show, Twitter — a predominantly real-time application — dominates, while post-show, Tumblr is seeing a lot of action.

(Just for fun, Unionmetrics data are shown above for Twitter chatter around Best Picture from the night of the 2012 Academy Awards. Note how the fan favorite changed several times as the night progressed.)

“We in the tech world are very fond of talking about freedom of the Internet, open everything, inventing the future. Tech world, I call bullshit. Until you change your mindset around ventures trying to change the world around sex, all you do is perpetuate the same Old World Order close-mindedness that that we pride ourselves on exploding. We’re at a zeitgeist moment, and the next big thing is ventures that change the world through sex and porn… That’s the opportunity to make really good things happen in this field.”

— Cindy Gallop, Founder of MakeLoveNotPorn and MakeLoveNotPorn.tv at The Future of Porn panel

Tweets from the DMZ: Social Media in North Korea

Jean H. Lee, the Korea Bureau Chief for the AP who reportedly sent the first tweet from North Korea after the country launched its first 3G network, spoke at SXSW about recent changes in how the restrictive regime approaches technology, and their impact on North Korean culture.

Lee, who started visiting North Korea in 2008, described the official policies towards technology on her early visits as “very strict.” Foreigners were not allowed to bring cell phones into the country, and like many smartphone users, when asked to leave her device behind she “freaked out. I had no alarm clock, no contacts, no music. I felt so cut off.”

Now, she’s able to bring a cell phone into the country, and use it to take pictures, post on Instagram, tweet, and connect to the new 3G network, although this freer Internet access is restricted to foreigners and not permitted for regular North Koreans.

“To put into context what we’re seeing with the 3G network, [the government] had such a tight hold on the flow of information, and anything that improves the flow of information is a step in the right direction,” said Lee. “I’m tweeting and posting to Instagram and that’s just limited to foreigners, but that’s a first step. I can look up something on the Internet and show it to North Koreans, and that opens up that channel of information.”

Despite the positive changes, Lee says there is still a culture of fear in North Korea, and people are extremely conscious of what they say in posts and e-mails and how it would be perceived by the government. “That is something that isn’t going to change right away.”

This is @garyvee — wine blogger, internet celeb, and social media powerhouse. He has an official SXSW booth, and he’s just sitting here holding court for five hours. A few dozen people are currently lined up to interview him, ask him for advice, and give him bottles of wine. Tough gig, Gary.

“Social capital doesn’t work among anonymous collectives. No one is going to give you permission; no one is going to tell you what to do. You have to go in and soak up the culture, and then take action. Taking action is what makes you special.”

Embrace Your Inner 5 GHz (If You Want To Connect to the Wi-Fi)

Two words (or one frequency): five gigahertz. Say it out loud, look for it now, and you’ll have a shot at connecting to the Wi-Fi here at SXSW, or any over-subscribed event where the network usually gets pounded into useless bits.

Turns out not all Wi-Fi networks are crap. It’s mostly a matter of good planning, says Joseph Wargo, president of Alpha Omega Wireless. Wargo and his fellow wireless heavies took an early morning gathering of the networking obsessed through the fundamentals of a screaming Wi-Fi network.

“It’s a density play,” Wargo says. “Everyone walks around before an event checking the Wi-Fi coverage, and in an empty room with one laptop they get screaming coverage. Then 1,000 people walk in, open their laptops and it all comes crashing down.”

For the kickoff party for SXSW interactive, which about 3,000 people attended, Wargo planned for two-Wi-Fi enabled devices per person. He and his crew then calculated about 40 people per access point, assuming not everyone is hitting it at the same time – so on the order of 50 to 75 separate access points. Wargo then uses directional antennae to create a sort of discreet grid of coverage. That way he can switch channels and bounce power around in a sort of round-robin way and lessen chances of interference.

None of that matters, of course if the backend isn’t up to snuff both in terms of bandwidth available and networking muscle. But if it is, the Wi-Fi should actually work.

The same lessons apply at home. Put your access point the center of the room, higher up the better, and depending on how large your mansion is, add additional access points. And make sure your Wi-Fi using gear, that means the Xbox, the TV, your phones, tablets and computers can use 5GHz. “There’s more channels,” Wargo says. (For now at least.) “Now go out and pound the network and see if it stays up.”

Today, Yuri Milner, a Russian venture capitalist and investor in top startups from Facebook to Twitter to Spotify spoke with Bethany McLean of Vanity Fair about what it takes to make it as a entrepreneur.

“Only a handful of companies can change the world,” Milner said. And he used Facebook as a prime example.

When asked, Milner said It was not a hard decision to invest in Facebook. He had backed other social media companies in Russia and he knew what would take to make the network a success. But ultimately, he believed in Zuckerberg’s plan.

To that end, Milner spoke on the value of founders. He does not demand a board seat for a two main reasons. First, his company invests in later cycles when boards are already formed. But more importantly, successful founders have an inherent drive to change the world. In other words, most are not completely motivated by money; they want to do something good for society. That drive is not only good for social change, but good for business.

Here’s the thing about the new Steve Carell magic-men movie The Incredible Burt Wonderstone: it’s not that it’s bad; it just really could be a lot better.

First, the basics. Wonderstone has a pretty stellar cast that includes Carell (the titular Wonderstone, a big-deal Las Vegas magician), Steve Buscemi (spot-on in his role as Wonderstone’s sidekick Anton Marvelton), and Alan Arkin, who nearly steals the show as the old-timer who inspired them all to become magicians. There’s also Jim Carrey as a Criss Angel-type street performer and Olivia Wilde being incredibly charming. Yet with all of this going for it, it’s hard to watch Wonderstone – which premiered Friday at South By Southwest – and not ask, “Is that all there is?” The jokes are pretty solid and no one is really slacking, it’s just that everyone’s so busy being funny (or trying to be) that they hardly ever give anyone any reason to care about them. A sad clown can inspire emotion; a sad magician just feels weird.

(Spoiler alert: Minor plot points to follow.)

A lot of the shortcomings come from the fact that the premise feels predictable. Wonderstone – a one-time picked-on kid who became the toast of Vegas thanks to his work with his best friend Marvelton – is getting older and his act is getting trite. A new magician’s assistant (Wilde), a falling-out with Marvelton, and the threat of Steve Gray (Carrey) becoming the hot new magician in town all combine to throw Wonderstone’s world into upheaval and he needs to get it back on track. Not a bad story, just a familiar one – down-on-his-luck magician may be new, but down-on-his-luck anyone else has been done before. And within that framework even the best jokes – and there are a lot of solid laughs – feel less funny.

And that’s a shame. Carell has been moving toward more serious acting roles in recent years with good results, but this return to straight-up comedy feels nice. Combine his turn as Marvelton with his shining moment in the recent adaptation of On the Road and Buscemi is kind of unstoppable lately in the That Was Oddly Awesome category. But yet all that does not a great movie make, not even when you add James Gandolfini as a smarmy hotel magnate.

Ultimately, that leaves The Incredible Burt Wonderstone in a bit of a lull. Much like the character, Wonderstone puts on a good show but doesn’t have enough tricks up its sleeve.

Upstream Color

What do orchids, maggots, pigs, endometrial tumors, new age music and drug-dealing thieves have in common? The answer to is hidden somewhere deep inside Upstream Color, the new film from Shane Carruth, which just screened at SXSW in advance of its theater release.

This is the second major feature from Carruth, the auteur who first made waves nine years ago with Primer, a sci-fi mind-bender about a couple of average-Joe engineers who construct a crude time machine in their garage. Part of the joy of watching Primer was trying to figure out how it all fit together afterwards, and while Upstream Color doesn’t attempt the same fancy logical acrobatics, it offers its own collection of inky, half-explained twists in a similarly edgy, paranoid tone. So if you enjoyed all of Primer’s layers, hidden meanings and puzzles — well, I hope you’re hungry for seconds.

Carruth is a hands-on guy. Once again, he writes, directs, shoots, scores and co-edits the whole of the film, and he again casts himself in one of the lead roles (opposite the excellent Amy Seimetz). I won’t even begin with the plot. That’s for you to experience — and debate — on your own.